


Life in Shades of Red

by QueenofLit



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Depression, F/M, I mean these people are in here, Memory Loss, PTSD, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, broken people healing together, but really only Donna and John matter, but short fic so not really, idk - Freeform, slowly getting better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-08 17:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3217292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenofLit/pseuds/QueenofLit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After The Fall, John finds himself unable to move on with his life. Every waking moment is defined by the memory of that moment, blood shining against the cold gray stone street - until the day their new secretary barges into his office, keys brandished like a weapon, and forces him outside for a pint.<br/>Donna Noble, who's hair is red like the sun.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life in Shades of Red

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this after my friend VintagePoison came up with the idea for shipping these two and posted it on tumblr. Glad to say there are more people on this ship than I thought, so I figured I'd upload it here too.

Five months had passed since Sherlock’s – since – since Bar – since _the incident_ , when John finally went back to work. In all honestly, it was only because Lestrade (who’d only been following orders and even then only trying to make sure there was someone there on Sherlock’s side, and he understood, honestly – besides, he’d already decked the man once) was threatening to use every favor he had to draw up a court order to put John in an institution on suicide watch that he’d gone back at all.

And so John walked the halls of the clinic and endured the stares, the whispers, the blatant questions directed at him by patients, co-workers, bosses. The questions were almost the highlight of his days – the only time he didn’t feel that soul-sucking… _blankness_ , that absence of anything and everything, was when he felt the familiar red-hot iron of anger flowing through his veins. It got better, eventually. He wasn’t so easy to anger, and life began to move on. This time, John moved with it. He still felt stuck, frozen in time as his body moved on without him, but it was – it was better, than those months curled up in Sherlock’s sheets staring at an empty chair all day.

They got a new secretary at some point. Some tall, bold red-head who wasn’t quite his type but absolutely gorgeous and that he would have hit on, in another time. She was loud and boisterous and talked at a mile an hour, but was otherwise not very note-worthy. She seemed, on the surface at least, completely ordinary.

Nearly a year into the time after – _after_ , John had been packed up and ready to go home after another day that should have been draining, if he’d been able to feel anything at all. But this night, instead of him going home and staring at that empty chair, their secretary stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm.

John looked up to see the normally vibrant woman staring at him with eyes he knew. They were eyes like his, that same draining sorrow and poisonous loneliness. It shocked him so much to see the eyes that stared at him in the mirror every day looking back at him in the form of this energy-filled woman that he lost the ability to speak.

Those warm green eyes softened with understanding as she gently prompted, not quite a question, not an order either, “Come have a drink with me tonight.”

John didn’t know why and probably never would – he just knew that he couldn’t deny this woman who held his eyes anything for the sheer chance that someone understood – but he agreed despite himself. That night it was just the two of them and a noisy pub, dim lighting and beer seeping in to make John more comfortable than he’d been in a long time as the secretary kept up a soft, pointless one-sided conversation.

And for whatever reason, John remembered absolutely everything she said, even when he went to bed two nights later. They’d been the first words to come to mind when he woke, a welcome reprieve from the spoken note that usually replayed with the rising light. When he went back to work Monday, the secretary – Donna, he reminded himself, Donna Noble – greeted him cheerily, and John gave her a small smile back. At his break, he brought her a cup of tea. He’d debated coffee, but remembered her stating she hated coffee the night before. She thanked him and they chatted for a while, despite the fact that she obviously had a lot of work. Not like Sherlock, who would ignore him simply because he felt like it sometimes. Her whole attention was on him, understanding and cheerful and beautiful.

For the first time since the incident, John noticed how bright the sun seemed to be when shining. The world wasn’t just made of gray, it was colorful and bright. It was red not like blood, but like the dawn. Or maybe, just maybe, like hair.

 

John had known Donna by name for a few months now, and each passing week seemed to get just that little bit better. She’d drag him out for a pint every time he’d had a hard week, just like she had that first time.

Well, not quite exactly like the first time.

It had been a hard week this week. The anniversary of Sher – of Bar – of the f – the incident, had been just nine days ago, and the media and looks from everyone around him had been terrible. Absolutely relentless. At least Lestrade had sent some men out to clear the vultures away from Baker Street so he could go to and fro in some semblance of peace.

Yet Donna, wonderful, beautiful Donna, had barged into his office once his shift was over with her purse all packed and keys in hand as if ready to brandish them as a weapon. “We’re going out for a pint tonight,” she declared. “At least one. And you’re going to enjoy it. You’re too old to play the moody emo kid and besides, black eyeliner would just look stupid on you anyway.”

John blinked at her in confusion and shock for all of a minute, and then a strange feeling hit him. A warmth in his chest, bubbling. Strange, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like this, he almost felt like –

No, John realized. It felt exactly like wanting to laugh. And why couldn’t he?

So John laughed. He wondered if the shock at such a sentence caused it, but he laughed with real mirth for the first time in over a year.

He noticed Donna seemed as shocked as he was for a moment, before her face was overcome with pride and joy. She was happy she’d made him laugh. She was happy because of him, because of his reaction to something she had done because Donna was simply that much of a wonderful, amazing chatterbox who said odd things.

John finished up his chuckles, and gave Donna a smile and a nod. She smiled in triumph, and John gathered his bag.

 

That night at the pub they talked a long time over their pints. They asked about things, and though Donna still carried most of the conversation John was contributing. He really was. It was just that she liked to talk, and he liked to listen to her. Her voice was like music.

“So why _do_ you hate coffee?” John questioned, only slightly attempting to draw the conversation away from his odd intolerance for anything more than three beers. He didn’t want to think about Harry right now, the week had been hard enough as it stood. “You never told me a reason.”

Donna grew silent at that, staring down into her drink as if it held all the answers, if she just looked hard enough. It was a sight John recognized from the other men at his therapist’s office - men home from the war and attempting to figure out the strange new world they once knew so well. Like something was missing. The first time he’d seen it, when they were talking about some crap sci-fi alien programme, it had shocked him. He’d never thought to see such a painful look on such a wonderful woman’s face. It didn’t belong there, had been his first thought, but the more they got to know each other the more John began to think that the expression not only should be there, but at times was more the true Donna than all of her bright smiles combined.

“I can’t remember,” Donna finally answered, having given the question almost too much thought. As if she’d asked herself the same thing many times before and had only ever reached that conclusion, despite every effort. “I know my ex-fiance used to bring me coffee every morning. I certainly loved it then but... but ever since the wedding, where he wandered off and never came back and I apparently drank so much after I’ve lost recollection of even getting to the church I haven’t been able to drink it. It’s like, like I can’t trust it not to poison me.”

As she fell silent again, John found himself speaking even as the familiar lump formed. “Sherlock used to do that - poison me. For experiments, for science. After our row at the inn, he gave me a cup of coffee. I’d thought it was his way of apologizing for saying I wasn’t his friend when I thought I was. It wasn’t - he’d spiked it to prove some theory about the hound.”

There. It was out. He’d spoken of Sherlock. To someone else, and not just the empty space in the apartment where there should have been a bundle of energy in far too thin a form. The lump was there, and it’d hurt, but John managed to get past it for the first time.

Green eyes met his blue, and John found the pain worth it to see such a look of understanding and sheer gratitude that flooded those lovely starlight eyes. John stared a moment, the silence between them comfortable and gentle, before recognising the moment had passed and moving on to draw the conversation into lighter waters. “What do you think of the new intern?”

“Benny?” Donna questioned with a laugh. “That kid has the worst taste in music. And his hair! Boy must fancy himself a vampire with that hair, wonder how long it takes him to faint?”

John chuckled. “He’ll probably make it through five tamer surgeries - he seems like he’s made of stronger stuff than he thinks.”

Donna snorted, head shaking in denial with a fetching twitch of lovely red hair following in the movement’s wake. “Oh please! Five pounds says he drops at the first sight of blood, probably from watching someone get a shot.”

“You’re on,” John agreed easily. Donna stuck her hand out to seal the bet, and he took it. Her hand was warm and firm in his own, a proper shake with no fear, no timidness, no caution taken for concern of causing the other discomfort. After the kid gloves everyone had been treating him with, John found it a welcome relief.

They only stayed at the pub a little while longer, and then they headed home. “No way,” Donna proclaimed loudly when John nearly tripped hailing a cab. “Drunk or not drunk” she added, seeing the protest form on his lips, “either way you’re too tipsy! You’re staying at my place tonight. And don’t get any ideas mister!” Donna slurred slightly, pointing her finger in his face and nearly poking him in the nose. “I’m just doing this cuz someone needs to look after you, this is not a mating thing!”

John laughed almost despite himself. “Understood mam,” he replied smartly. Donna nodded and began to lead the way, her flat within walking distance. John followed while slightly marveling at how strange it was that the fact that she was doing this to look after him, make sure he didn’t do something stupid at his house alone with his gun and an empty chair all by himself, that made him so glad to follow her home instead of the prospect of sex. Honestly, that hadn’t even really crossed his mind once this whole night.

If his army buddies were here, they’d taunt him and mourn for the loss of ‘three-continents Watson’.

Perhaps that was why they weren’t here, not a single one of them, but Donna was.

As memories of the war always brought it out of him, John began to feel his leg stiffen slightly. Donna looked back after noticing him falling behind a bit, even in her similarly tipsy state. With a roll of her eyes and a loud sigh, Donna reached back and grabbed his arm, pulling him along slightly. “Come on, John! If this walk takes us all night I will never live the embarrassment down!”

John was only miffed a moment, as the taller woman who didn’t have a re-appearing limp looped her arm with his to make him keep pace. Then he realized her pace had slowed a tad bit itself, and her arm in his gave him something to lean on for support.

He looked up at her in amazement, and Donna winked.  

 

John was awoken not by dreams or memories, but by the screams of someone else.

Without sparing a moment John was off the couch and running to where Donna slept. She was in the throes of some nightmare. As he opened the door (he tried not to make it slam against the wall, he really did, but sometimes doors are just loud) the noise woke Donna and she bolted up in a sweat. Large, terrified eyes desperately sought him out even as John sat on the edge of the bed and began to run calming hands up and down her shoulders and arms. “Where is he?” Donna asked, quickly turning into begging as she clutched his shirt in her hands. “Please John, where is he?”

“I don’t know,” John had to answer, keeping his voice calm and even. He’d done this for so many other soldiers in his hospital tent years ago that it came nearly naturally to him now. She recognized him at least (even though she wasn’t quite completely awake) that was a good sign. “I’m sure he’s fine though.”

“How?” Donna demanded. “How can you be sure? He was all alone, and he let everyone go again, and he’s alone now, and he’s hurting so much! Who will be there to stop him next time, huh John? Who? Who will keep him from destroying everything he’s worked so hard to be?” Donna’s eyes were wild and wet with tears as she cried out, “Who’s going to keep him from falling?”

John flinched at the word (he’d never not flinch, never again, not after - not after _that_ ) but somehow managed not to falter. Donna needed him right now - he couldn’t afford to fall apart. “He might be falling,” John told her softly, never letting her eyes leave his. “But if he is, he’s falling through stars. And if there’s any justice at all in the world, any good act ever been performed, any kindness ever shown another human being, then he’s fallen into the lap of someone who will take care of him. Someone who will comfort him and give him a home. It’s only fair, after you’ve done the same for me.”

Donna looked at him for a long moment, and then with a slight sob leaned in for comfort. John wrapped his arms around the fragile woman and held her close as she cried her eyes out. The sobs subsided a bit as the redhead got it out of her system and woke up fully. Once he figured she was stable enough for it, John pulled her away a little and prompted, “I’m gonna go make some tea, okay? Why don’t you sit in the kitchen with me, alright?”

Donna nodded slowly, and John managed to guide her into the small kitchen. He sat her at the table with a blanket round her as he bustled about making tea. It was a long night spent in quiet broken only by the gentle sounds of tea being consumed, but John found he didn’t mind. Donna was actually _letting_ him help her, and it was so different from Sherlock that he couldn’t help but to feel relieved. At about four in the morning she snapped out of it, and John found himself flabbergasted when she kissed him softly on the cheek as she thanked him. John cleaned up before going back to sleep on the couch, and the both of them managed to get in several more hours before having to wake up and face the next day.

 

Their relationship changed after that night, shifted in ways John couldn’t understand and didn’t particularly care to. Donna dragged him out more, they had lunch and dinner and sometimes even breakfast together. Her laughter became more honest, more bright, and John actually did laugh now. He started hanging out with Lestrade again, helped Mrs. Hudson around the flat some. He was picking his life back up.

He and Donna seemed to share the same need for adventure, and so whenever she noticed the tremor in his hand Donna grasped it firmly in her own and dragged him out. They would wander the city streets, finding little restaurants and shops and other various things hidden to those who weren’t looking. Donna would catch sight of something odd and stare into space, almost as if she wasn’t occupying her own brain at the moment, and John would lead her to a bench and sit with her, gently waiting with her until she returned to earth. John would find his limp forming up again, and Donna would link her arm in his, pressing close and slowing her walk a bit as he leaned upon her for support.

Donna was perfect. John couldn’t describe it any other way. And so when she was in trouble of losing her flat because of rising prices, John moved in to help out with the bills. They both continued to drop by Baker Street often, checking in on Mrs. Hudson as she really was getting on up there in age and they worried. She didn’t have the heart to rent out 221b or even empty anything, and so John started using the... the inheritance from Sherlock’s - Sher - his - his _disappearance_ , to pay the normal rent on it to insure the woman wouldn’t be hard pressed to make her own rent. It was the least he could do for her, even with how annoying she could be when attempting to talk about Sherlock with him (she was still convinced they’d been a couple, and John didn’t believe anything he said would ever change her mind. Thankfully Donna had just laughed).

Donna never pressed, either, as the months passed. She didn’t attempt to make him admit to the truth of why Sherlock wasn’t there the way his therapist did, didn’t give him that look of pity when he spoke of Sherlock in the present tense like Greg. She just gave his hand a squeeze, and accepted it. And John never pried, never attempted to find out who this person she kept reaching for when she woke up screaming in the middle of the night was. She never mentioned a name, never remembered one, and John never tried to find one out. He didn’t press for details on her PTSD, she never asked for his. They simply held each other through the night terrors, talking each other down until it was just them again. Only the two of them - no shadows, no stars.

 

John and Donna had been together a year, and London lost its glamour. So the two of them pulled all their vacation days and saved funds and booked a plane to America. John brought along a card that took from the significant funds Sherlock had... left him, and so there was no need to rush things. They rented a little car and began to wander, no real destination in mind. John couldn’t quite grasp the backwards driving system, and so Donna remained the driver most of the time. John was happy to let her, laughing as she honked and cursed her way through most of the country. Donna’s driving skills certainly fit in here.

They visited old bells and viking ships, saw huge forests and crossed winding rivers. They ate all manner of food, in fancy black-tie affairs and in small mom-and-pop local haunts. They bought sleeping bags and camped out under the night sky in the country, amazed at the sheer amount of countless stars. They stumbled their way through the Grand Canyon and national parks. They saw misty days and double rainbows. They watched the beauty of a sunrise on a beach in Florida, and witnessed the marvel of sunset on the prairie.

And when John turned from that sight, on an endless patch of land somewhere in Oklahoma far away from even the mooing of cows, to see Donna next to him, he felt his breath catch. Illuminated in the dying light as reds and purples and golds chased each other across the sky Donna turned to look back at him. Her eyes were lit like stars, her skin glowing in the day’s last light, and the red of her hair caught the red of the sun so well it seemed to be made of flames. As she smiled at him, so full of joy and love, John was certain his heart stopped for a moment.

It was then he knew - without a single doubt - that this was the perfect woman he’d been searching his whole life for. He and Donna were simply meant to be. Broken pieces though they were, somehow the rough edges lined up perfectly, as if they’d been made that way. This was the woman he wanted to marry, this was the woman he loved.

 

All adventures must come to an end, unfortunately, and so John and Donna returned to England after six months with a single addition: one simple ring. It was nothing fancy, and John had felt a little embarrassed as he presented it softly while sitting side by side on the plane home (her last fiance had made a large production of it - John didn’t want to stir up any old memories) but Donna proclaimed to love it as she slipped it on. The little silver band with a small single stone embedded in the top looked perfect on her, and Donna didn’t stop smiling the whole trip home.

They didn’t make a big deal about it, only telling family and close friends, and there really was no set date for the wedding (much to Mrs. Hudson’s disappointment). They were still planning, and Donna was rather apprehensive of anything to do with the word wedding. Completely understandable, considering her last fiance had left her at the altar without a single word to anyone. No explanation, no sightings of him with a younger woman, just a vanished man and a month of tears. And so John didn’t push. Honestly, he would prefer the wedding to be a small affair anyway. A priest and a witness - that’s all he needed. As long as Donna was there nothing else mattered.

Although.... it would have been nice to have his best friend there as well.

 

When Sherlock returned - alive and not dead and arrogant and infuriating and insulting and painful and _breathing_ \- Donna didn’t bother holding John back. Her first reaction was to be a silent support, quietly reminding John that he needed to breathe. When all control snapped and John went for that skinny throat to wring it, Donna had just sat back to watch. As they hopped from diner to diner, John getting them thrown out of each one as he found out more and more of just how in the dark he’d been this whole time (he’d deserved to know, why wasn’t he allowed to know? Why wouldn’t Sherlock let him help _for once_ in his life? Just one damn time) Donna remained steady.

In that last diner, when Sherlock had revealed that people _knew_ , that _twenty fucking_ _strangers knew_ , and he _didn’t_ , John hadn’t been able to hit Sherlock again.

Donna had reacted faster than either of them.

The redhead lashed out and clocked him one, accompanied by a lot of yelling. She demanded to know just what Sherlock had thought to accomplish with that, how he could claim to be so smart when he didn’t stop to consider the hurt he was causing his ‘just one’ friend. She asked if he realized just what he’d put John through, the depths of hurt and the fact that had John not had such watchful friends, John probably would have died. At some point John wondered if she was screaming solely about him, but it didn’t matter. He and Donna had the same hurt - the only difference was that his remembered shade had come back. After the punch and tirade, Donna grabbed John’s arm and hauled him out of the diner.

Probably broke that bastard’s nose.

God, John loved this woman.

 

He had to keep telling himself that, when two weeks later Donna had dragged him to Baker Street and shoved him upstairs with orders to make up. He couldn’t just get out of it either, not after she’d pulled that trump card on him.

 _“You got him back,”_ she’d said. _“Yours came back to you. You remember him, and now you’ve got the ability to have him back. Don’t you dare mess this up. I know how much you need him.”_

And so John found himself in the old, familiar flat, staring down Sherlock. Something had changed, in those three years apart. Sherlock seemed less antsy - or at least he didn’t show it anymore. He fiddled less, but his eyes showed more. He seemed to have broken down some of those barriers, and John surprised both of them when he simply sighed and ran a tired hand over his eyes. “Just tell me why I couldn’t know, Sherlock,” he stated. “Just that, and I’ll do my best to put this behind us.”

Sherlock was silent a long while, until John finally removed his hand and stared the younger man down. With a deep breath to steel himself, Sherlock finally met his eyes as he stated, “Moriarty was going to kill you. He had a sniper on your position, and probably more watching. I couldn’t let you know, John. If you’d known, they would have found out, and you would have been killed.”

Damn. John could still find grounds to be angry with him, but it’d gone from a continent to a very small island.

But Donna had been right, as always. He needed Sherlock. It’d been slow at first, but John found himself filling up his old position easily. And it was becoming more and more evident that Sherlock needed him just as much, if not more. The annoying genius had met Donna and shown surprising restraint, not blurting out any deductions other than to congratulate them on the engagement. John knew it was only slightly because the woman had impressed him with her punching skill, but mostly because John had shot him a warning glance when he’d introduced the two.

And those glances seemed to be all he needed, nowadays. Sherlock was more aware of social boundaries and would now look to John first instead of simply charging forward. He was more human, in many ways. If only in the fact that the skinny detective now was showing the all-too familiar signs of some low-level PTSD. John wondered if it was simply his fate to be surrounded by it for the rest of his life.

Helping Sherlock meant fewer hours at the clinic, however, and soon John and Donna were faced with a belligerent landlord tired of waiting for payments. Donna refused to let John stop going out with Sherlock and take on more hours. Instead she packed their bags and told the irritating little man exactly where he could shove his power-trip. The two made their way over to Baker Street (both of them were used to a pretty sparse living style so it was rather easy) and then rented out the downstairs apartment, 221c. Mrs. Hudson was all for them staying with Sherlock in 221b, but there were some lines that had to be drawn. They were up there often enough though, so it’s not like the distinction truly mattered.

They were all together again - this strange, broken little family. None of them were probably completely sane, but none of that mattered. They were together under one roof, and they were home. John had his surrogate mother, his best friend, and the woman he loved all together under one roof. Life wasn’t the ideal, but it was absolutely perfect.

Life wasn’t colored red like blood on a grey street; it was red like the sunset, red like the upturn of Donna’s perfect smile. No longer perhaps, but certainly, like hair.

 

 


End file.
